A singer starts his/her journey into the world of singing with voice as his’ or hers only main weapon. One gets to face a lot of challenges before carving out a name or place for one-selves in the industry. Again in this, one comes across a rich variety of singers. Some singers sing only classical, some do only playback, some give only stage performances, some devote their voices only to religious purposes, etc. In a country like India, where there are different cultures and different forms of music, this is no strange thing to happen.
In a world where experts are speculating whether this advanced technology has become a bane or a boon to the common man, it comes as no surprise that this ever-surging technological wave has hit the conventional arts. Whether the hit is for the betterment or deterioration is the question of the hour!
One among these repercussions has hit the singers. Their voices can be manipulated according to one’s will with the help of technology which are given names like Remix, Rap, Modulation, etc! Moreover, the point is not about a singer’s performance in a concert in either olden days or in present. Irrespective of the time-frame, a singer should be a singer. There's no sense if he/she becomes an actor on stage and enthrall audience with their antics. There are actors for doing all that stuff but a singer should ideally be able to sing whatever might be the stage whether it is a recording studio or a concert or a show, etc. Am I right in saying so? There is no doubting that everyone has got one's own talent but to what extent they possess that talent is to be noticed (at least for the topic now).
Singers like Anupama, Vasundhara, Minmini, etc are all either one or two-song wonders. They are gone after that and no one remembers them. Dr. A.R.Rahman Sir is adept in making the voices of 'untrained' singers sound fabulous which is possible only with the usage of technical equipment otherwise their voices are not at all appealing. And this is the striking point which is to be compared with the greats of S.P.Balasubrahmanyam, K.S.Chitra, etc. Their voices can sound outstanding either with the usage of equipment or even without the usage of equipment. This is where the present crop of singers lag behind them by leaps and bounds.
More or less, the same monotonous process is being followed by most of the composers these days. They usually do not ‘find’ (?) singers with great voice and for compensating the quality in the voice, they heavily rely on technical equipment and give statements that they have used new instrument(s) for the film’s score. But it is ultimately the singers who are at stake as they will be given a wrong feedback about their voice. Carrying out that false eulogy, these singers resort to weird actions and feel as if they have attained the zenith in singing with just one or two songs. Their real talent is known only when they come before the people in a live performance and once they start realizing that it’s not going to work anymore, they start doing all kinds of antics which make people jump and laugh.
One more point to be observed here is why the singers who feature in Rahman's camp do not figure in any of the other music composers' camp? For that matter, every singer who features in Ilaiyaraja Sir's camp is a trained singer with strong foundation and is used by every other composer. By saying this, it's not that I am taking stand in support of Ilaiyaraja Sir. Whatever I have written here are facts and just facts. Don't you people agree on that? One can observe that the singers who perform for classical concerts will be reluctant to do the playback for they fear the usage of technical equipment dominates more than their voice, which is contrary to their learnt lessons and practice.
Finally what matters to the common audience is that irrespective of whether a composer uses technical equipment or not, the song should be appealing enough to listen. All the composers including Rahman and Ilaiyaraja strive to do the same. Some are successful in doing that and some are not. And if that is a live performance, people come to watch for the composers’ and singers' live performance and not for their weird actions.
2 comments:
One thing i don't like about today is that all music shows emphasize on performance rather than singing and you rightly point out that aren't there enough no. of actors/actresses for those kind of histrionics.
No wonder most of these Reality Show Winners end up acting in movies or Serials rather than play backing for some movies.
Somehow the trand in sout of india seems to be the exact reverse of what is happening in Bollywood. Music shows do emphasize on performance, but good singing talent is definitely encouraged irrespective of the fact that whether they won or were eliminated before the finals of the competition. Prime example is the Malayalam Film Industry where there is a great pool of talented young singers. The same holds true for the actors/ actresses too. A reward for the industry for doing the basics right and not blindly aping the remaining film industries across India.
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